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Wedding Registries: How Many Will You Have?

There’s no stopping you from picking and choosing a few items from many different stores and websites to compile your dream registry, but there is a magic number to registries if you’re at all concerned about your guests’ ease at finding your wedding gift list. Find out what it is after the jump.

One lone registry tends to be too limiting. What if your great-aunt lives in the middle of nowhere (read: cows outnumber malls) and has spotty or--gasp--no internet access? Picking a single department store that’s only found in a certain part of the country or only in upscale areas will make her gift-getting a difficult experience.

You’d think that picking lots of stores would be smart, then. Nuh-uh. The more registries you have, the fewer items you’ll have on each registry, and the more likely guests will snatch up items at the easy-to-access store. It’s pretty frustrating for a guest who’s not so internet-savvy to drag herself to a store only to find out that each of your registry requests have been fulfilled and then have to go to another store.

Two - three wedding registries are the sweet spot. And you should give at least one brick-and-mortar option (some of your guests may not even own a computer let alone know what WiFi is) and one online option (for the connected guest who doesn’t own a car and definitely doesn’t want to drag himself down to the mall). It’s enough variety without spreading your wishlist so thin that guests are likely to get shut out.

How many registries will you have? Do you think one registry is enough and four or more aren’t too many? What registry choices do couples make that you hate?